“Actions on climate change require the current generation to make decisions …that will have profound implications for future generations… The cost of inaction is the greatly increased probability of high temperatures with their associated severe consequences. Nicholas Stern, “A Blueprint for a Safer Planet”

Looking for paid employment that makes a difference to our planet and the health of our community? READ ON! Georgian Triangle Earth Days Celebrations is a charitable organization dedicated to energy conservation strategies and climate change mitigation approaches. It starts with science based education and moves as quickly as possible towards action in solving problems for our Earth. GTEDC will be hiring 2 people under 30 and one coordinator to install clotheslines as an alternative energy project to help homeowners and apartment dwellers stop using clothes dryers that consume large amounts of natural gas or electricity.
Here is how it works: a representative will first come to a home to see where the clothesline would be placed. They will have homeowners sign a contract agreeing to the long-term usage of the clothesline. This project will help families cut greenhouse gas emissions. Families also save $100 a year or reduce 6 to 10 percent of their electric bills by using clotheslines. In fact, if we got rid of all our electric/gas dryers we would reduce the emissions equal to145,000 cars in Ontario. That is why this work is so important. Since the goal is to dramatically lower emissions, bicycles will be ridden most days to the various sites. Work will start as early as May 1st. Some employment will run only for the summer but other work will continue to spring.
This pilot project is only the first step in implementing many other low- cost but extremely effective projects. Youth can be the leaders in achieving successful change and be paid to do so! As engaged and informed persons on climate issues know, older adults need help in finding alternatives to an out-dated ‘growth-is-best’ consumer driven ethos. Many young people feel hopeless with regards to fighting climate change, but hope means rolling up your sleeves and turning good ideas into actions.
Write to celebrateearth@yahoo.ca if you are a motivated young adult who wants to lead the way with meaningful actions and desires to work on this innovative team project. Tell us about yourself and when you are interested in working. Our corporate partner, Home Hardware in Thornbury, will reduce the cost of a clothesline package by 25 per cent to help make this a successful project. This project will go ahead in early July if public sector funding is also received.
Recently EcoJustice and one of its lawyers, Albert Koehl, worked to make all municipalities in Ontario clotheslines-friendly, thus overturning bylaws that had previously prohibited them. GTEDC wants to celebrate their efforts by putting into action this Ontario law. Projects such as Clothesline Action need young adults to be in the vanguard because they know what is at stake and can inspire other people to make a huge difference.
Clearly, young people can no longer take the chance that older generations will act on their behalf. University of Calgary’s David Keith says “People talk a lot about spending money for future generations but typically they don’t do it very much.” Just take a look at the recent UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations in Bonn, Germany. “As the Secretariat’s analysis shows, the pledges of rich countries add up to a negligible cut in carbon pollution, jeopardizing the welfare of our children.” See www.climatenetwork.org

“The trick now, of course, is to actually use our foresight and abilities not only to dodge but also to deflect the bullets heading our way- including, perhaps especially, the ones aimed squarely at Earth’s ecological heart…The reason Earth is in peril is because of individual actions. Just as the problem is the sum of what each one of us is doing, so is fixing the problem. That means we each hold a little part of the future or the world in our hands… It’s never been easier for you to help change the course of the planet. “
Anthony Barnosky, “Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming”